


Will You Speak My Name?

by bunnystealsyourcarrots



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Last Jedi
Genre: AU, Angst, Death, F/M, God of Death, Kylo is Anubis who is being changed to Greek Hermanubis, Light Smut, Mention of pregnancy, Rey is a Greek Goddess, Reylo - Freeform, Two gods from merging worlds, they don't call it greek tragedy for nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnystealsyourcarrots/pseuds/bunnystealsyourcarrots
Summary: When old gods are replaced by new, you're either changed or soon forgotten.A Kylo (as Anubis) and Rey (as a Greek Goddess) Mythology Reylo AU one-shot.





	Will You Speak My Name?

They call him the God of the Dead.

 

He is the world’s dog, its most loyal servant.

 

His role often thankless, his deeds less often etched into papyrus.

 

Where there is death, there is him, and that is enough.

 

Yes, that should be enough.

 ____________________________

 

As he finishes embalming a lesser pharoh, Anubis hums. A song filling the air that nobody else knows, a song to guide the souls to beyond. A song that you can only hear once no matter how much influence you amassed in your last life, and how pure is that humbling leaking between razor-sharp teeth.

 

Oh yes, how divine.

 ____________________________

 

“They are coming,” his mother warns the jackal-headed god one morning. “They are coming to replace us.”

 

“Who can replace death?” Anubis responds, gravelly voice echoing in the bowels of the underworld as he continues cutting linen strips with the ends of his sharp nails. “Who else could sing the song?”

 

“They are coming,” she urgently repeats, frantic as he remains calm because there is always change. The only certainty in life remaining death and his servitude to it.

 

The tips of his dark ears nudge towards her. “Do you forget that you were once Hesat, then Bastet, then Nephthys? Your name changing in their stories and I have loved you in all forms, _mother_. For I will always be death, and you shall ever be beloved no matter what they call us. Yes…some things remain eternal."

______________________________

 

In the halls of Ma´at, the pharoh’s hearts no longer require weighing. In the blink of an eye, the rites shift without any formal proclamation, the rulers face paler when Anubis wraps them, and his hackles raise to constantly alert and angry in the wake of this sea of unwanted change. For him, some days it’s barely enough to keep afloat when he never once imagined that his role should sink so quickly. His falling to almost a footnote of history in the space of a breath, and he is already humbled when a servant of another god visits his tomb

 

“We will keep you as a guide of the dead,  _Barker_.”

 

That name isn’t a kind welcome. From the minds of the blasphemous above, he's heard the insult whispered more often, and after all that he’s endured, Anubis refuses to stand for anyone saying it to his face in his lair below. Tossing aside the whip in his hand, he stands up to his full height, his muscular biceps grazing the painted walls of his workshop. The stories of those before smearing against his fur, their legends remaining a part of him, and his molten gold eyes fixed on the brash goddess before him with her menacing silver bow in her hands. An arrow poised to strike him down should he put up a fight, and his chest puffs out to give her a larger target.

 

“I am not part of a pack,” he growls, anger coloring his words into the stuff of inky black nightmares as it has been a year since he last heard his mother’s voice, his father’s, his wife’s. “I am kept by no one.”

 

“You will be kept by us.”

 

“And who are you?”

 

“All you need know is that you remain the scavenger,” she sneers, the dominance in her posture challenging his, “and I am the hunter who will bring you down if you do not heel.”

 _______________________________

 

They call him Hermanubis.

 

A name hoisted on him, unwanted.

 

Only half of him maintaining any power, and under his skin, the ancient god feels the newer one sinking influence into his marrow. This Hermes. This usurper. This foreigner who changes Anubis from the inside out until tufts of his ebony hair fall out, his snout shortens.

 

All that he is becoming more Greek, less timeless.

 

________________________________

 

There are days when the former ruler of the underworld envies those in his care who died quickly. For Hermanubis, the beginning of his end stretches on so horrifically long now, the decades crawling by when so much that he cherishes is trampled on again and again around him. All those beautiful traditions joyfully disrespected, all the replacements making less sense. At times, he feels like chomping down on the bones of the past until he is their rabid owner, his rage palpable while holding on, but his mouth remains pliant after reminding himself that his time is coming to an end.

 

Yes, soon, he will cease to be no matter how hard he fights it.

 

No use at all for him to struggle with this new crew of gods when he knows truths that they can’t see with such fresh eyes. Only barely lifting his head, he scents the oncoming change in the air, the tension they never expect. Up on the surface of the world, the thrones switch, they hurtle closer towards another new normal below, and the next time he meets the Huntress, Hermanubis could tell how much his appearance had already shifted to other. Yes, the death god who once weighed souls watched hers crack, an unexpected fondness forming between.

 

“Hermanubis?” the lovely one whispers, her square jaw clenching as her bow unconsciously lowered. “What have you done to yourself?”

 

Stepping into the light, he shows off the new domesticated features. The nose changed from canine but remaining strong, his skin hairless and smooth, those few black dots remaining on his finely carved cheekbone. The little bits of him holding on, and his dark lustrous hair brushes against his massive shoulders when he flicks his head towards her.

 

“This is your influence.”

 

When her eyebrows lift in confusion, his head tilted with interest like the dog he once was, vindictively reminding the little Huntress of what fate might one day have in store for her.

 

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” he asks.

 

From across the room, he observes her chest rapidly rise and fall and then steady beneath her chiton. The fear recognized and then neutralized. The keen hunter at all times until one day she will no longer be.

 

“Do you hate your reflection?” her voice comes out breathy when she finds it again, fearfully curious. “Do you hate the beauty?”

 

Slowly unfastening the chlamys at his shoulder, he bares his chest to her. The otherworldly cotton hanging onto his taut muscles for a breath before falling to his feet. Not aroused, not arrogant, but only mocking her with his new body that means nothing to him even as it so obviously rules over her emotions.

 

“I was wonderful before,” he purrs, and then he pounced, his fingers retaining enough of his claws to pin her shoulder to the wall, carve a nail in. “Your eyes were only too weak to see it,” he hisses, breathing in her startled terror as his finger turns through flesh.

 

Between the flashes of pain and shock, it dawns on the goddess that her weapon sits uselessly on the ground.

 

No one to hear her pleading so far underground.

 

No other option available for her defense but to bare her teeth in response like the animal he brings out in her, the fight temporarily bound inside her fiery eyes. “How great could you have been when you were so easily beaten?” she taunts, her breath hot against his jaw when she tips her insolent chin up. “So  _swiftly_  forgotten.”

 

Dragging his nose along her cheek, he sniffs. “And what do they call you now?”

 

“The ones who replaced you,” she defiantly snarls, snapping her head away.

 

At that, he laughs.

 

The floor trembling beneath them.

 

The land of death his eternal best friend, and the Huntress had the good sense to stop struggling. To play dead and weak after recognizing how thoroughly the snare is already closed around her ankle. None of her killing skills any match against this god with hair the color of black and blue decay, an unfathomable force in front of her who counts loss and grief as his dearest companions.

 

“What do your friends call you?” he presses, watching her eyes widen into shocked as she looks like he’d wandered into her mind to pluck out the word  _friend_. “What name do they use?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I wish to know it,” he answers simply, the turn of his nail into her shoulder far less polite. “What is your name?" 

 

"Rey,” she whimpers, eyes cast low. “They call me Rey.”

 

“Hmm,” he exhaled, lifting his nail out of her flesh. “Then I shall call you that too while we can.”

 

Under his terms and desires alone was Rey freed. No longer pinned, no longer interrogated. No longer so sure that she holds any power at all when he can unsettle her with a knowing smile as she snatches up her bow, scampering away with her usual bravado left behind.

                    ________________________________

 

A decade passes before she visits him again.

 

The wings at his ankles flutter when he approaches her, the scales that once weighed hearts so much smaller in his grip.

 

One by one, the pieces of him are lost and transformed, but his eerily stoic voice continues to taunt her. “What have you come for today, little Huntress? Have they forgotten your name yet, do you need me to speak it?”

 

“You have slacked off your duties,” she clears her throat, looking anywhere but his honeyed eyes that see too much. “I am here to encourage you to remember your role.”

 

“Yes,” his smile grew to condescending, and he nodded to her bow. “How _encouraging_ you are.”

 

“Hermanubis-”

 

“Did you know that one of my names was Jackal Ruler of the Bows?” he cut her off, laughing. “Did your fickle Storm-god tell you that when he sent you down to control me with that particular weapon for protection?”

 

Rey sharply inhales. “No.”

 

“Hmm.” Running his fingers along a table where the insides of a partially wrapped mummy lay decomposing, he stops to pick up his whip. The leather strips curling around his knuckles with a flick, the casually violent motion contrasting his courteous nod for her to lead the way. “How dangerous it can be to forget history.”

                  ________________________________

 

Out of all the gods who could tend to Hermanubis, Rey alone is tasked with keeping an eye on him- the stealthy maiden with her Death. Not even his equal serving as his emissary, and she starts suspecting that other more popular gods actually find it beneath them to check in on him. There are whispers caught here and there that speak of foolishly assuming that the older god will soon diminish, other outright grumbles from some who are more concerned about keeping him away from any gods that he might overthrow on a whim. All around, Rey sees the full picture clearing up until she understands that her peers send her to deal with him because they consider him beaten to the point of being managed by her, so near forgettable, but Rey notices who the dead ask for no matter which language they speak.

 

No need for him to overthrow anyone when he remains so beloved.

                  __________________________________

 

One hundred years later on the edges of the underworld, Rey wades through the winding Nile to reach the god seated on the underground banks with his forearms on his thighs. The heels of his palms shoved against his temples. His mouth contorted in a silent scream of anguish, and even the shadows avoid him. They know.  Oh, they understand what it is to feel lost in the light.

 

But Rey wades to before him, kneeling in the water so that he can see how she shares the ache.

 

“I heard.”  
  


 

The god flinches at the sound of her empathy.

 

 

“Have you?” he snarls, looking up with the dog in him sneaking out when he’s not in control, lashing out before he’s hurt. 

 

 

“I’m sorry,” she confesses, almost pleading.

 

 

"Haven’t you come to gloat?” Hermanubis demands, dropping his hands to smack on his thighs. “To rub in that the queen of your people calls herself my mother, encourages others to forget her entirely.”

 

  
“No,” Rey insists, impulsively reaching out to brush her finger against his. Offering a touch of comfort, and though she’d been initially unsure why she’d worn out the soles of her sandals on her run to reach him, it’s clear why she rushed when faced with his pain. Oh, her purpose is so clear in front of him. “No, I only came to hear her name from you.”

 

After the sentiment left Rey's lips, the god jerked his head up, his watery eyes staring her down. Narrowed, raw into savage, and she is small beneath his ancient judgment, suspects she’s always been insignificant compared to him. Never truly realizing how far he is above her until he can break her with a trembling word.

 

“W-Why?”

 

“Goodness deserves to be shared.”

 

Without humor, Hermanubis laughs, and she understands how false she must appear to him. For the longest time, Rey assumed him a monster that matched his shocking looks, the rumors down the grapevine of his brutality adding fuel to her prejudice. Over and over, she’d obsessively longed for an excuse to shoot this tired god into further obsoletion, almost feeling ordained to make him accept who now ruled supreme.

 

Yes, to build her growing importance into a thing of substance, she’d eagerly sought a reckoning. Looking to reinforce her dominance over all wild creatures, itching to prove who deserved the world more, but even before she saw his face change from awe-inspiring to echoing her people, Rey had started to guess how ignorant she’d been. The seeds of her doubt planted until she only harvested regret after each order relayed to him.

 

Even that first time that she’d witnessed him easing the journey of someone who’d passed on, comforting while holding their fate in his hand, Rey felt prickling sensations dancing upon her skin- some unpleasant truths perhaps whispering at her that the real monster among the two of them wasn’t him. It almost knocked the breath of her lungs, that first wave of questioning. That tinge of unfamiliar shame building inside of her when all her life she’d always heard that she was divine and perceptive; and for someone used to being worshipped for assessing situations, she didn’t handle the humbling well. No, she battled back her suspicions, fervently denying how much she admired his ability to never turn cruel as an option to pass the boredom, denying even harder the lightness that quickened her heart whenever she observed him honoring commitments throughout his losses. Always so strong and reliable while she continued to behave shamefully, fearfully. In the wrong again and again, and to show him the depths of her high opinion, Rey dipped her head, grazed her lips against his knuckle.

 

“What was her name?” Rey repeats, desperate to make him understand that she means no harm. Only caring to be the one to ease his sorrows for a change, and her eyes shuttered closed from the expected weight of the world falling on her if she amplified his suffering. As vulnerable as she could be in front of him, tearing up and then even more so when he held her lower lip between his fingers, traced his thumb over her teeth. “Tell me,” she whispers.

 

Lifting his hand away, Hermanubis soothed the loss of his touch with a softer kiss. Pressing the words of adoration against the corner of Rey’s lips,  
  


 

“Her name was Isis.”

___________________________

 

They make love among red dirt and marshy water that glitters with the euphoric memories of souls who’d journeyed further into the depths of the underworld and lost pieces of themselves along the way. Nothing ordinary about the location of the first coupling of two gods from two different worlds. Nothing comparable either when he pulls gasps from her chest with the softest kisses, his lush mouth made for adoring her over and over. Every second not enough with him, and Rey can’t stop smiling after realizing that the act of joining with the death god is ethereal, singular, and miraculous for her: all the words for divine and other that had ever been spoken.

 

All the words not yet created but she’s certain will be inspired by the sensual drag of his teeth along her clavicle, her ribs, her breasts. The sucking on her skin from ivory to pink, those gorgeous light nips. The beast never far from the surface when he’s in the throes of passion, and Rey loves him for it. Can’t get enough.

 

No, as her heels dig into the base of his back, she keeps trailing her fingers across his eyebrows, his cheek, his kiss-stained mouth. Giving him the proper glory that he has missed, the praise he deserves. Giving him unspoken flattery in every way possible as he takes and takes and takes. The two of them feverish, desperate, needy. So thoroughly drenched in beading sweat and fondness, and crying out louder and louder for everything the other has until his thrusts quicken into a blur of wondrous demand and Rey arches against him. Only finding completion when closer, their gaze unwavering through the aftershocks.

 

That sweetest peace finally discovered when he is an alpha again, and she his fierce mate.

 __________________________________

 

Resting on his side, he follows the trail of goosebumps that he leaves wherever his fingertips touch her. Stroking a hand through her chestnut hair, down her tanned skin again, and Rey’s cheeks throw more color in the mix as she senses what he will say. The most reasonable thing to point out when the red dirt glitters more ruby after their time together.  
  


“Why didn’t you tell me?” he gently prods, the words far gentler than the thick cock still heavy against his thigh after taking her for the third time.   
  


“I thought you knew,” Rey bit her lip, green eyes looking away before she released it, “all who are blessed to serve on the hunt are virgins.”  
  


"Ah.” Brushing his thumb around her rosy nipple in tiny maddening circles that he’s had thousands of years to perfect, he led Rey into gasp filled writhing that banishes away any awkwardness between them. Only stopping when her joy shined again, her cheeks pink not from shame, and when she was soft and sweet again, he spoke plainly without judgment. “I do not know all of your religious ways.”  
  
  


“We try our best to forget yours.”  
  


“Mmm,” he hums, and as Rey didn't mean to harm with truth, she curls against him. Softening the blow with another languid kiss, easing it lower. “Will you be punished?” he groans, stroking her shoulders, her neck, her sanity as she tested his.  
  


“Yes.”

  
"Can I see you again?"   
  


"Please.”

  
________________________________  
  


They meet between shadowlands and soft touches.  
  


For years their affections never diminishing. For years their all-consuming want never flickering away even as other gods slowly die off around them. No space between their two worlds safe from disbelievers, little hope that they’ll escape the same fate, but her lover has lasted over a millennium, and Rey is comforted by his endurance.  
  


_Even if I stop existing, he will continue, and the world will be better for it._  
  


Though she can no longer hunt, they are happy- almost rebelliously blissful during uncertain times. Nothing's more natural then sharing wisdom and cravings, and never would Rey have dreamed that a goddess with eyes the exact color of spring meadow grass should enjoy spending her time so often underground where nothing but love grows, but life is lovely with her god of death. Their life together so wonderfully full. Their needs met and exceeded, and that’s why it should feel like an anointed blessing of their joy when Rey one day discovers her belly rounded, her breasts full, but she is fearful. Unable to stop sobbing against her palms when there’s all the proof of some part of her living on coming about when she needs it most, but she keeps away from her lover for a few weeks. Keeping her secret from someone who sees too much, her favorite being who has to have guessed what she already suspects after she’s begun noticing that fewer and fewer patrons visit her temple, her skin shimmering more like iridescent pearl these days in the sun even as she adds weight. The child not the blessing that she needs, but oh does she want it.

 

The grass beneath her feet turns brown to black to ash one afternoon.

  
The god of death acting out, calling for her.

 

The both of them unused to her staying away so long, and when Rey's knees knock as she stands before him, she knows that she was right to avoid it for as long as possible. The shocked rage on his face causes her stomach to flip, the beat of her heart pausing: his influence over her life too dangerous in her condition, but then his arms curve around her waist, his devotion keeping her close.  
  


"Why did you hide from me?” he asks, nuzzling his nose against her cheek, kissing all the scattered freckles that he has missed, feared he’d never see again.”Why were you away so long?”  
  


“I was scared to make you happy with the news when I might not make it to term,” Rey admits, quaking in his grip. "I didn’t want to give you hope.“

 

"Little goddess,” he smiles against her tear-streaked skin. “It is far too late to avoid that.”  
  


“I love you," Rey throws her arms around his neck, saying nothing new but needing to say it again and again and again for him to remember after he carries her to beyond. "I will always love you,” she swears, kissing his mouth until it is red from her, left influenced by her if only for a little while longer. “I will love you when your name is changed and mine is forgotten, and I am only stardust who still loves you."   
  


"What will my new name be?” he teases, light and playful with her when the truth is too hard to admit, the god so used to tears not ready to mourn quite yet.   
  


“Kylo,” Rey whispers as inspiration hits, pressing the created name against his mouth, his memory, his future. “I name you again before the others, and only you are blessed enough to know the name of the god who was more loved than any before.”

 _____________________________  
  


The birth is easy.

 

The most generous possible gift for two who had hoped beyond their odds. The best case scenario for the weakened goddess, and while her Kylo has known centuries of pain, he’s never imagined such heartbreaking joy. Never thought he’d experience the sheer euphoria that obliterates all other assumptions of happiness. This bone-deep contentment that comes over him when he locks teary eyes on Rey who is now mother to his hopes and dreams. Thanking her for existing with an ardent kiss, thanking her with every inch of his soul for nurturing them all.  
  


All throughout the pregnancy, they’d worried. Both of them unable to stop letting insidious panicking tendrils knot into their hopeful hearts as Rey’s voice thinned, her skin becoming more like crushed starlight. So much of her shifting too quickly that had nothing to do with birthing a god, but here is the loud and healthy fruit of her labor. This sweet peach fuzz covered babe, the safely delivered impossible one crying out for warmth and milk. His little hands balling into demanding fists, and Rey nurses while laughing as Kylo turned away to find the blanket that he’d created from the sky.

 

The material is the color of jackal’s fur, the exact color of who he was for who would now remember him. The first of many tokens of his affection as he sings a song that is new to him, freshly inspired, but the cloth drops to the floor once Kylo realized that the baby still cried out for milk, no mother on the bed to provide more. 

 

At the Huntress temple, the grass turns green to brown to black.  
  


The god of death acting out, calling for his beloved.

 

The ground no longer fertile as he rages in his loss, and nobody ever notices because nobody comes to worship there anymore.  
  


_________________________________

 

The final song is different in his ears.

 

The words precious in tones that only he understands.

 

Beside a tall slab of obsidian, the raven-haired god with his green eyes flecked with gold remains lively. No fear encroaching in his tone when he’s speaking about his day and nothing of importance to the death god flickering into nothing on the table. Knowing enough about the process not to panic his father with too many teary proclamations of love, the youthful god only calms with casualness. The shimmering skin already means the end is near, the fate out of his hands, and so he keeps his words light, brave and dependable like his nature. So selflessly comforting the father who has lovingly tended to him for hundreds of years, and they trade easy smiles

 

“You are like her,” the ancient god tells him as he has told him many times before.

 

"I wish I could have known her,” his son replies, resting his hand upon his father’s.

 

“As do I,” Kylo hums, continuing his own death song, “but all that is important now is that you remember that there was a Rey and I her Kylo. The name of two gods once worshipped by many, but who loved each other and you more than all of our devoted combined.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've always found it interesting to think about how some cultures absorbed older gods while giving them newer characteristics, and I wondered about how those gods might feel about it. Anubis seemed like a natural fit for Kylo since he too was formerly very powerful, then his power diluted as he changed, and even his face got a makeover.
> 
> Love to know what y'all think.
> 
> <3Bunny


End file.
